Saturday, February 02, 2013

Archbishop Louis Sako, who has headed the Chaldean Catholic
archdiocese of Kirkuk, Iraq, since 2003, has been elected the new
Patriarch of Babylon and worldwide leader of the Chaldean Catholic
Church.

The 64-year-old Iraqi prelate was elected this week by the Synod of the
Chaldean Church, meeting in Rome this week, and Pope Benedict XVI
quickly granted his request for full ecclesiastical communion.

Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, as he will be known, succeeds the
retired Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly, who retired in December at the age
of 85 after 9 years as head of the Chaldean Church.

The newly elected Patriarch said that he would work to preserve the
vigor of the Chaldean Church, but especially to protect the future of
the ancient Christian community centered in Iraq, which has been
decimated by emigration, as young Iraqi Christians seek to escape from a
campaign of intimidation by Islamic militants.

“There is no stability
and the security is getting worse,” the Patriarch told Vatican Radio.
“Everybody is worried.”

The Iraqi prelate has frequently spoken about the threat to the
Christian presence in Iraq, but vowed that the Chaldean community would
remain active in spite of threats.

He has pleaded for Christians in the
West to show their solidarity with the suffering Christians in Iraq and
elsewhere in the Middle East.

A native of Mosul, Iraq, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako was ordained to
the priesthood in 1974.

After earning two doctorates--first at the
Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, then at the Sorbonne in Paris—he
returned to pastoral work in Mosul.

He spent 5 years as rector of the
Patriarchal Seminary in Baghdad before being chosen as Archbishop of
Kirkuk in 2003.